2 ms·

Interesting read, thanks. I would say I definitely lean closer towards the revisionist take and while I do see the middle ground Walker is trying to state exis

by pests 3y ago

Interesting read, thanks. I would say I definitely lean closer towards the revisionist take and while I do see the middle ground Walker is trying to state exists, I feel like its just a toned down version of the revisionist argument for the traditionalists stake. I do believe part of Japan leadership wanted to surrender and would have if we did not require it "unconditionally". We definitely kept the bomb secret in order to show off our power to the Soviet Union - we hid as much as we could and only alluded to our new weapon in passing. "Defeat is not surrender" is such a cop out. Now wars can only end in surrender? Says who? Why can't we draw up a truce and just end-it-now instead of this invade-or-bomb nonsense? Why did it have to be one or the other? I do agree it was Total War and the morality of a lot of these things were not on the mind of many, espically Truman after inheriting the situation.

defrost 3y ago
> We definitely kept the bomb secret in order to show off our power to the Soviet Union Err, the British, Australians, and Soviets "in the loop" knew about the bomb development programme - the British and Australians talked the US into starting it after they equivicated for some time, not even taking Einstein seriously about the supposed "need" to develop it. The Soviets were closely in touch with the progress of the Manhatten Project thanks to Klaus Fuchs who tackled the thorny problem of imploding the fissionable core of the plutonium bomb and was present at the Trinity test. Which does pose the question, secret from whom? Certainly from the US Vice President and general US public, the general Commonwealth and Axis public, etc. Not so much from Allied high command nor even Axis command suspicions - both the Germans and Japanese had their own nascent atomic programs which had promise but lacked resource commitment.
- pests 3y ago
  Thank you for the details. There really is so much at play here not even bringing in the spying. I've had a question maybe you would know ever since finishing the Rhodes book relating to the initiator. Maybe its a sign of the times the book was written, or maybe purposfully leaving details out, but I had some confusion. At one point its talks about the gun-style design and how it needed to be a certain size in order to accelerate the bullet up to enough speed so that it does not become critical before the bullet makes complete contact with the target. There was what felt like an entire chapter to speccing out the gun and how fast the bullet would need to travel etc. Then later it talks about needing to design a foil initiator which would provide an additional source of neurtons to set it off, which would be sandwiched between the bullet and target. Then what was the worry about the gun size / bullet speed? This was seperate from the initiator that was needed for the implosion type bomb and what I presume Fuchs helped with. I am almost positive this is what I read but the book I feel is unclear or states different things at different times about this topic. Its 1200+ pages and I haven't gone back to look, but just wondering if anyone knows the details here. Did the gun-type bomb need an additional initator or was just shooting the two parts together enough?
  - defrost 3y ago
    I'm getting kind of old, forty years ago I was across much of this and collaborated on a book about some physics of this nature after interviewing Oliphant. The crux of many of the issues with either design was getting a sufficiently high number of neutrons being created within a dense enough source of further neutrons to ensure a full (as full as possible) fission reaction of all the fissile material. Not quickly enough, or with too few neutrons and a "damp squib" would result - a fission reaction that starts, expands, and blows apart the source material with far less than the desired "full fission" release. A fully symmetric spherical implosion compressing inwards all about a sub critical sphere (perhaps formed by bring halves together earlier) was one approach, another was rapidly bring together an excess and to compress a richer source | generator of neutrons for the extra boost to be sure. There's more on that here: https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Science/BombDesign/initiators.html https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Scien... https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Science/BombDesign/gun-type.html https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Scien... and I'm more or less loathe to go on beyond what I can readily find online - although I doubt I can add much beyond what is on public record, I ultimately spent much of my career detecting radiation, environmental and weapons by products, rather than creating bursts of energy.

by pests 3y ago

defrost 3y ago

> We definitely kept the bomb secret in order to show off our power to the Soviet Union Err, the British, Australians, and Soviets "in the loop" knew about the bomb development programme - the British and Australians talked the US into starting it after they equivicated for some time, not even taking Einstein seriously about the supposed "need" to develop it. The Soviets were closely in touch with the progress of the Manhatten Project thanks to Klaus Fuchs who tackled the thorny problem of imploding the fissionable core of the plutonium bomb and was present at the Trinity test. Which does pose the question, secret from whom? Certainly from the US Vice President and general US public, the general Commonwealth and Axis public, etc. Not so much from Allied high command nor even Axis command suspicions - both the Germans and Japanese had their own nascent atomic programs which had promise but lacked resource commitment.

pests 3y ago
Thank you for the details. There really is so much at play here not even bringing in the spying. I've had a question maybe you would know ever since finishing the Rhodes book relating to the initiator. Maybe its a sign of the times the book was written, or maybe purposfully leaving details out, but I had some confusion. At one point its talks about the gun-style design and how it needed to be a certain size in order to accelerate the bullet up to enough speed so that it does not become critical before the bullet makes complete contact with the target. There was what felt like an entire chapter to speccing out the gun and how fast the bullet would need to travel etc. Then later it talks about needing to design a foil initiator which would provide an additional source of neurtons to set it off, which would be sandwiched between the bullet and target. Then what was the worry about the gun size / bullet speed? This was seperate from the initiator that was needed for the implosion type bomb and what I presume Fuchs helped with. I am almost positive this is what I read but the book I feel is unclear or states different things at different times about this topic. Its 1200+ pages and I haven't gone back to look, but just wondering if anyone knows the details here. Did the gun-type bomb need an additional initator or was just shooting the two parts together enough?
- defrost 3y ago
  I'm getting kind of old, forty years ago I was across much of this and collaborated on a book about some physics of this nature after interviewing Oliphant. The crux of many of the issues with either design was getting a sufficiently high number of neutrons being created within a dense enough source of further neutrons to ensure a full (as full as possible) fission reaction of all the fissile material. Not quickly enough, or with too few neutrons and a "damp squib" would result - a fission reaction that starts, expands, and blows apart the source material with far less than the desired "full fission" release. A fully symmetric spherical implosion compressing inwards all about a sub critical sphere (perhaps formed by bring halves together earlier) was one approach, another was rapidly bring together an excess and to compress a richer source | generator of neutrons for the extra boost to be sure. There's more on that here: https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Science/BombDesign/initiators.html https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Scien... https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Science/BombDesign/gun-type.html https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Scien... and I'm more or less loathe to go on beyond what I can readily find online - although I doubt I can add much beyond what is on public record, I ultimately spent much of my career detecting radiation, environmental and weapons by products, rather than creating bursts of energy.